|
International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group
Coalition pour la surveillance internationale des libertés civiles
March 26, 2022 - 26 mars 2022
| |
ICLMG appears at ETHI committee for study of the use of facial recognition tech by law enforcement
| |
|
ICLMG 24/03/22 - Our coalition has identified three reasons, in particular, that give rise to concern:
First, facial recognition systems are inaccurate and biased.
Studies have shown some of the most widely used facial recognition technology is based on algorithms that are biased and inaccurate. This is especially true for facial images of people of colour, who already face heightened levels of surveillance and profiling by law enforcement and intelligence agencies in Canada.
This is particularly concerning in regards to national security and anti-terrorism, where there is already a documented history of systemic racism and racial profiling. Inaccurate or biased technology only serves to reinforce and worsen this problem, running the risk of individuals being falsely associated with terrorism and national security risks. As many of you are aware, the stigma of even an allegation in this area can have deep and life-long impacts on the person accused.
Second, facial recognition allows for mass, indiscriminate and warrantless surveillance
Even if the significant problems of bias and accuracy were somehow resolved, facial recognition surveillance systems would continue to subject members of the public to intrusive and indiscriminate surveillance. This is true whether it is used to monitor travelers at an airport, individuals walking through a public square, or activists at a protest.
While it is mandatory for law enforcement to seek out judicial authorization to surveil individuals either online or in public places, there are gaps in current legislation as to whether this applies to surveillance or de-anonymization via facial recognition technology. These gaps can subject all passerby to unjustified mass surveillance in the hopes of being able to identify a single person of interest, either in real-time or after the fact.
Third, there is a lack of regulation of the technology and a lack of transparency and accountability from law enforcement and intelligence agencies [...]
Given all these concerns, we would make three main recommendations:
- That the federal government ban the use of facial recognition surveillance immediately, and undertake consultation on the use and regulation of facial recognition technology in general
- That based on these consultations the government undertake reforms to both private and public sector privacy laws to address gaps in FR and other biometric surveillance
- That the Privacy Commissioner be granted greater enforcement powers, both with regard to public sector and private sector violations of Canadian privacy laws.
Read more - Lire plus
TAKE ACTION: Protect our rights from facial recognition
UK: Police guidance on facial recognition technology ‘a hammer blow to privacy’
US: The Hidden Role of Facial Recognition Tech in Many Arrests
| |
Islam & Life show: Episode 7 featuring ICLMG | |
MAC 24/03/2022 - Co-hosts Memona Hossain and Khaled Alqazzaz were joined by ICLMG's National Coordinator Tim McSorley and Sarah Mushtaq to discuss the impact of the government's recent use of emergency powers on civil liberties, especially in the Muslim community, and more. Sarah Mushtaq is a board member of the Canadian Muslim Public Affairs Council, a community advocate, a writer and a regular media commentator. | |
Azeezah Kanji: Freeing Canada from colonial freedom | |
|
Al Jazeera 10/03/22 - The recent spectacle of Canadian police and military figures supporting, schmoozing, and sympathising with convoy participants thus perpetuates another tradition – the public-private partnership in upholding the racial order of the settler state. From the 16th-century Spanish “discoverers”-qua-demolishers of the so-called New World to 17th to 19th-century genocidal American militias and “slave patrols”: colonial sovereigns have long deputised private settlers to enact violence against the colonised and enslaved. Though some of the “excesses” of deputised violence are disciplined – particularly those that threaten the profitability and reputability of the colonial enterprise, as did the convoy – the underlying hierarchy of being is preserved intact. And so, Canadian police and security agencies have looked away as white supremacist groups amass arsenals, while Indigenous, Muslim and Black communities are intensively securitised and surveilled. Canadian courts have exonerated settlers who kill Indigenous “trespassers,” while Indigenous nations are criminalised for the non-violent defence of their own ancestral lands.
The “Freedom” Convoy was permitted to “occupy” Ottawa and other cities for over three weeks – despite having proposed the overthrow of the Canadian government – while Indigenous, Black and homeless peoples’ resistance to state brutality has been crushed with an iron fist. Day one of the Ottawa convoy blockade, January 29, was the fifth anniversary of the Quebec mosque shooting: a manifestation of the systemic Islamophobia inscribed by state “war on terror” practices exposing Muslims to expulsion, torture and death. Day 12, February 9, marked four years since the acquittal of Gerald Stanley for killing young Cree man Colten Boushie, who was shot point-blank by Stanley in the back of his head – part of the ongoing assault on Indigenous lives in Canada, whether by the quick violence of a bullet or the slower violence of dispossession and poisoning of waters and lands.
On February 19 – convoy day 22 – South Sudanese refugee Latjor Tuel was shot to death by Calgary police while in mental distress at a bus stop, for refusing to drop “weapons” that were actually a retractable cane he needed to walk with, as well as a small knife.
Year after year, Canadian police kill Black and Indigenous people in grossly disproportionate numbers, largely with impunity (only four percent of police killings between 2000 and 2017 resulted in criminal charges and 0.4 percent in convictions): a reminder that the policing and prison system now being pitched as the “solution” to white supremacist aggression is simply another side of the same sword.
Two weeks ago, Canada’s temporary “state of emergency” in response to the convoy was lifted. But the permanent and in many ways more draconian regime of counterterrorism – reserved for use primarily against the racialised and colonised – remains firmly in place. As philosopher Walter Benjamin observed, for the oppressed, “the ‘state of emergency’ in which we live is not the exception but the rule”. Under the emergency measures, convoy participants complained that they were treated “like terrorists” and placed under “martial law”. Never mind that the government did not, in fact, use the military against them – as it has repeatedly to subjugate Indigenous opposition to corporate depredations (Kahnawake and Kanesatake in 1990, Gustafsen Lake in 1995, Elsipogtog in 2013), without any “emergency” declaration required.
Nor did the government deploy counterterrorism’s extensive array of “exceptional” state powers – “pre-crime” prosecutions, entrapment operations, no-fly lists, terrorist entities lists, counter-radicalisation programmes, reverse bail onuses, constitutional rights breach warrants (authorised by secret court hearings), suffocating peace bond conditions, security deportations – applied against Muslim communities en masse, including children, since the “war on terror’s” launch. Convoy donors whose bank accounts were temporarily frozen have now been unfrozen, resurrecting them from claimed “social death”; while Muslim charities like IRFAN have languished on the terrorist entities list for almost a decade for the “offence” of making medical donations to Gaza, impeded by the listing conditions from challenging the listing in court. Read more - Lire plus
"Jan 6th is gonna be crazy... LOL": DHS officials expected violence at the Capitol, kept it to themselves
| |
Canada’s spy agencies have held back information from Parliament’s watchdogs | |
|
Global News 21/03/22 - Canada’s intelligence agencies have held back information from parliamentary oversight, leading a key watchdog committee to warn its work could be “compromised” if the situation continues. The National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP), a joint House of Commons and Senate body that reviews the country’s intelligence apparatus, warned that “some organizations” have delayed or denied the committee’s requests for information. The committee’s right to access information is enshrined in law, but intelligence agencies “have delayed the provision of information or did not provide requested material relevant” to their reviews. “Should this continue, the ability of the committee to fulfill its statutory mandate will be compromised,” the committee warned in recently published documents."
It’s not the first time NSICOP has raised concerns about getting access to the information required to conduct its reviews. It’s been an ongoing issue since 2018, and publicly flagged again in the committee’s 2019 and 2020 reports.“(It) suggests that this is an ongoing problem, or at least an ongoing risk that the committee is attentive to and is trying to flag publicly as something that could endanger their mandate,” said Christopher Parsons, a researcher with Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. While the committee has produced some critical reporting on the operations of the intelligence community, Parsons suggested a larger risk is the committee being given incomplete or selective information about intelligence operations. That could lead to the committee either missing key details about operations or painting the intelligence community in a better light than the reality.
“If they’re not getting access to relevant documents, the reports they’re putting out … may actually not have the critical information that would allow NSICOP to assess more critically the operations” of federal intelligence agencies, Parsons said. “So when and if they’re not getting access to documents there’s a concern that the result is it sort of jukes the reports that are coming out, such that while they are helpful, they may not tell the full story. And they may tell a story that’s more in the interests or the favour of the reviewed agencies than may be appropriate.” [...] By law, the committee “is entitled to have access to any information that is under the control of a department and that is related to the fulfilment of the committee’s mandate.” That includes information protected by solicitor-client privilege. The committee submits its reports to the prime minister, and officials scrub the reports of information that could compromise national security before releasing a censored version publicly. Read more - Lire plus
| |
Matthew Behrens: Afghanistan’s Women’s Rights Defenders Abandoned by Canada | |
|
Rural Refugee Rights Network 16/03/22 - Farzana Adell, a leading Afghan women’s rights activist now hiding in Turkey due to Taliban death threats, is struggling to get to Canada, but Ottawa has placed insurmountable barriers in her way.
Since the fall of Kabul last August, the Taliban’s message to Afghan women has been clear: your rights will continue to exist – but only on paper. And anyone who objects will be subject to beatings, disappearance, and murder. For the thousands of Afghan women who have been waiting over half a year for clarity on Canada’s commitment to resettle 40,000 refugees fleeing the Taliban, Ottawa’s March 3 announcement waiving normal visa requirements for an unlimited number of Ukrainians (a welcome move) must have nonetheless felt like a Taliban-inspired reminder that their lives are not worthy of urgent action.
For Farzana Adell, a leading Afghan women’s rights activist now hiding in Turkey due to Taliban death threats, it is completely understandable that Canada would be fast-tracking Ukrainian refugees. But why hasn’t a similar sense of urgency been attached to the many cases like hers, where the risk of persecution, torture, and death remains high? While Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) Minister Sean Fraser insists Afghans remain a priority (even as he concedes they can expect up to an additional 2-year wait for processing), Adell and countless others in her shoes have found the path to safety in Canada littered with bureaucratic bafflegab and needlessly obstructive barriers.
Adell meets all eligibility criteria for entry to Canada under the “special humanitarian program to resettle vulnerable Afghan nationals outside of Afghanistan.” She’s a women’s rights leader, a human rights defender, and a member of a persecuted religious group and ethnic minority (she is an Ismaili Muslim and an ethnic Hazara, both groups persecuted by the Taliban). She is also unable to access health care where she now lives: she is a severe diabetic with unstable vision, stomach and kidney pains, and ongoing physical and emotional trauma from life-threatening beatings she endured at the hands of the Taliban. But like many Afghans, while she meets the definition of individuals in desperate need of protection, some fine-print details make it literally impossible for her to access Canada’s immigration system. Read more - Lire plus
TAKE ACTION: Call/Write to Save Life of At-Risk Afghan Women's Rights Defender Farzana Adell
“Who Does the West Consider Worthy of Saving?” Asks Matthieu Aikins, After Journey with Afghan Refugees
| |
Canada must bring back Jack Letts and other Canadians detained in North East Syria | |
|
Canadian Coalition to Free Jack Letts 16/03/22 - "Charter rights are not dependent on the wisdom of the choices Canadians make, nor their moral character or political beliefs. Foolish persons have no lesser rights under the Charter than those who have made wise choices or are considered to be morally and politically upstanding." (Abdelrazik v. Canada, 2009 FC 580).
Regardless of your opinion on why many young individuals went to Syria (to help victims of Assad/Russian violence, to escape Islamophobia at home, some to resist the Syrian dictatorship), the Federal Court of Canada says your Charter right to return to Canada (Section 6) still stands. That is especially the case now for the four dozen Canadians (men, women and kids) detained for years in NE Syria under conditions tantamount to torture.
Canadian Jack Letts went to the region to help victims and was jailed repeatedly for denouncing ISIS. He's been held without charge for 5 years. He, along with all other detainees, has the right to return home. His captors have asked for repatriation; Canada refuses to act. What if they'd gone to Ukraine and were held by the Russians? Bring them home NOW. Source
The UK government’s hypocrisy is keeping Jack Letts and his mother in purgatory
TAKE ACTION: Free Jack Letts
| |
UN rights chief decries mass execution of 81 people in Saudi Arabia | |
|
UN News 14/03/22 - The UN human rights chief has condemned the beheading of 81 people by Saudi Arabia during the course of a single day, charged with terrorism-related offences. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet urged the authorities in a statement released following Saturday’s mass execution, to “bring the country’s counterterrorism laws fully into line with international standards”. The beheadings exceeded the total of 67 executions that reportedly took place in the country during the whole of last year.
Among those put to death on 12 March, Ms. Bachelet said she understood that 41 were Muslims from the Shiite minority who had taken part in anti-government protests in 2011-12, calling for greater political participation. Another seven were Yemenis and one was a Syrian national. “Our monitoring indicates that some of those executed were sentenced to death following trials that did not meet fair trial and due process guarantees, and for crimes that did not appear to meet the most serious crimes threshold, as required under international law,” she said. The High Commissioner also expressed concern that some of the executions appeared to be linked to the on-going armed conflict in Yemen, between Houthi rebels and a Saudi-led coalition, backing the internationally recognized Government forces.
Implementing death sentences following trials that do not provide the required “fair trial guarantees” is prohibited by international human rights and humanitarian law and “may amount to a war crime,” the UN rights chief reminded. Moreover, the death penalty is “incompatible with fundamental tenets of human rights and dignity, the right to life and the prohibition of torture”. She said that failure to provide relatives with information on the circumstances of their loved ones’ executions “may amount to torture and ill-treatment”. “Authorities should return the bodies of those executed to their families”, underscored the top UN human rights official.
Ms. Bachelet voiced her concern over the extremely broad definition of terrorism in Saudi legislation, including non-violent acts that supposedly “endanger national unity” or “undermine the State’s reputation.” “This risks criminalizing people exercising their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly,” she warned. Despite a global move away from the death penalty, Saudi Arabia is among some 38 countries that continue to implement it. “I call on the Saudi authorities to halt all executions, immediately establish a moratorium on the use of the death penalty, and commute the death sentences against those on death row,” concluded the High Commissioner. Read more - Lire plus
Saudi Arabia: 10 Egyptian Nubians Held Unjustly
TAKE ACTION: Canada’s silence on Saudi mass executions deeply troubling
| |
British spies who helped CIA torturers subject to English law, court rules | |
|
MEE 16/03/2022 - British spies who allegedly provided the CIA with questions to put to detainees being tortured at "black sites" are subject to the law of England and Wales, not the laws of the countries in which the prisoner was held, a court in London has ruled.
The three judges at the Court of Appeal were asked to decide whether Abu Zubaydah, who was subjected to extreme mistreatment and torture at secret CIA "black sites" in six countries, has the right to sue the UK government in the courts of England and Wales. Abu Zubaydah, whose given name is Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn, filed a lawsuit against the British government last year, alleging that UK intelligence services sent numerous questions to the CIA for the purpose of attempting to elicit information of interest. The lawsuit claims that UK intelligence services sent the questions to the US spy agency without seeking any assurances that Abu Zubaydah would not be tortured or mistreated. At the High Court last year, Justice Lane ruled Abu Zubaydah's torture was subject to the law of the countries where the CIA sites were located, but the case was appealed.
On Wednesday at the appeals court, Lord Justice Males, Lady Justice Thirlwall and Dame Victoria Sharp unanimously concluded there were "strong connections connecting the tortious conduct with England and Wales". "As for the services, they would reasonably have expected that their conduct here would be subject to English law," Males said in his written judgement. Males said there was "unlikely to be any serious dispute" that Zubaydah "was subject to treatment in those countries at the hands of the CIA which, in this jurisdiction, would be regarded as torture". The judge also noted that Zubaydah had no control - and likely no knowledge - over his location, and that his location was irrelevant to the UK intelligence services. A Palestinian born and raised in Saudi Arabia, Abu Zubaydah was captured in a US-Pakistani raid in Faisalabad, Pakistan, in 2002.
At the time he was taken prisoner, the CIA, along with then-President George W Bush, publicly claimed that he was a top-level al-Qaeda leader with direct connections to Osama bin Laden. But in 2006, the CIA conceded that Abu Zubaydah was never a senior member of al-Qaeda - because he was never a member of the group to begin with. According to a Senate Intelligence Committee report, he was interrogated using techniques that amounted to torture - including being waterboarded 83 times in one month, hung naked from a ceiling and deprived of sleep for 11 straight days. During his nearly two decades in captivity, Abu Zubaydah has never been charged or tried. In January, Lithuania paid Abu Zubaydah more than $100,000 for allowing the CIA to hold him at a black site in the country. Read more - Lire plus
| |
CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach interrogators torture techniques | |
|
The Guardian 14/03/2022 - A detainee at a secret CIA detention site in Afghanistan was used as a living prop to teach trainee interrogators, who lined up to take turns at knocking his head against a plywood wall, leaving him with brain damage, according to a US government report. The details of the torture of Ammar al-Baluchi are in a 2008 report by the CIA’s inspector general, newly declassified as part of a court filing by his lawyers aimed at getting him an independent medical examination. Baluchi, a 44-year-old Kuwaiti, is one of five defendants before a military tribunal on Guantánamo Bay charged with participation in the 9/11 plot, but the case has been in pre-trial hearings for 10 years, mired in a dispute over legal admissibility of testimony obtained after torture.
According to the inspector general’s report, the CIA was aware that the 2003 rendition of the detainee, Ammar al-Baluchi, from Pakistani custody to the “black site” north of Kabul was conducted “extra-legally,” because at the time he was in Pakistani jurisdiction and no longer represented a terrorist threat. The report said that interrogators at the site, known both as Cobalt and the Salt Pit, went beyond the CIA’s guidelines in torturing Baluchi, using two techniques without approval: using a stick behind his knees in stress position that involved leaning back while kneeling, and dousing with ice-cold water. The technique of “walling” was approved by the “enhanced interrogation technique” guidelines sent by CIA headquarters. It involved placing the detainee’s heels against a specially designed plywood wall “which had flexibility to it” and putting a rolled up towel around the detainee’s neck.
“The interrogators would then grab the ends of the towel in front of and below the detainees face and shove [Baluchi] backwards into the wall, never letting go of the towel,” the report said. One of the interrogators (identified only by a code) said the goal was to “bounce” the detainee off the wall. The report noted that Baluchi was “naked for the proceedings.” There was no time limit for the “walling” sessions but “typically a session did not last for more than two hours at a time.” They went on for so long because Baluchi was being used as a teaching prop. One former trainee told investigators “all the interrogation students lined up to ‘wall’ Ammar so that [the instructor] could certify them on their ability to use the technique.”
The report said that: “In the case of ‘walling’ in particular the [Office of the Inspector General] had difficulty determining whether the session was designed to elicit information from Ammar or to ensure that all interrogator trainees received their certification.”
The fact that interrogators lined up to “wall” Ammar suggested that “certification was key,” the report concluded. A neuropsychologist carried out an MRI of Baluchi’s head in late 2018 and found “abnormalities indicating moderate to severe brain damage” in parts of his brain, affecting memory formation and retrieval as well as behavioral regulation. The specialist found that the “abnormalities observed were consistent with traumatic brain injury.”
The inspector general’s report also concluded that Baluchi’s treatment did not yield any useful intelligence. It noted that the interrogators at Cobalt “focused more on whether Ammar was ‘compliant’ than on the quality of the information he was providing.” It called the CIA’s logic in justifying the detention “fuzzy and circular.” “Ammar fabricated the information he provided when undergoing EITs,” it said. “He later admitted to his interrogators/debriefers that he was terrified and lied to get agency officers to stop the measures … Ammar also explained that he was afraid to tell a lie and was afraid to tell the truth because he did not know how either would be received.”
The interrogators were convinced that Baluchi knew more than he was saying because he was a nephew of the self-proclaimed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khaled Sheikh Mohammed. Baluchi spent more than three years in CIA custody, moved between a total of six “black sites” before being transferred in 2006 to Guantánamo Bay, where he is still awaiting trial. Alka Pradhan, one of his lawyers said: “If the CIA had not hidden their own conclusions about the illegality of Ammar’s torture for this long, the US government would not have been able to bring charges against Ammar because we now know that the torture inflicted on Ammar led to lasting brain damage in the form of a traumatic brain injury and other debilitating illnesses that cannot be treated at Guantánamo Bay.” Source
| |
EU: Free speech under attack: French Presidency proposes action against “radical rhetoric” | |
|
statewatch 24/03/2022 - The French government has proposed EU action against “entities or individuals” that are “active in the spread of radical rhetoric” as a way to stop “the spread of extremist and violent ideologies and to prevent the radicalisation of new actors.” A discussion paper circulated in the Council on 23 February lists “the supremacist or neo-Nazi violent right-wing extremist scene... violent left-wing extremist movement... ultra-nationalist movements... Sunni radical Islamists... or Shia radicals,” as potential targets of measures that would be directed at “organisations or individuals who are not directly involved in the commission of terrorist acts, even if they have been active in the spread of radical rhetoric”.
Measures against “propaganda leading to terrorism,” asset freezing and EU-wide bans are listed as potential ways "to hinder the activity of such entities or individuals in a coordinated manner.” The paper argues that: “…it seems essential to go beyond the simple improvement of information sharing between competent authorities of the Member States, which is already efficient, to focus on better coordinating concrete measures. A genuine European mechanism directly targeting these "vectors" of radicalisation - whose precise details and objectives will have to be discussed collectively - could be put in place.”
The French government has worrying form in this area. In December 2020 it ordered the dissolution of the anti-discrimination NGO, Collectif Contre l'Islamophobie (CCIF), alleging that it promoted hate, discrimination and violence and had engaged in actions aimed at provoking terrorism. Human Rights Watch declared the dissolution of the CCIF as threatening “basic human rights and liberties including freedom of expression, association, and religion, and the principle of nondiscrimination.” The CCIF itself noted: “Ten years ago, the dissolution of the CCIF was demanded only by the 'identitarian' groups of the ultra-right, which our association has several times had convicted for incitement to hatred and apology for terrorism… How have ideas still considered to be extreme right-wing, become normalized in public debate?”
The French authorities have also enthusiastically pursued pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaigners with prosecutions and bans. In June 2020 the European Court of Human Rights overturned a 2015 ruling that found 11 activists guilty of “incitement to economic discrimination” after a pro-BDS protest outside a supermarket, where they urged shopper not to buy products of Israeli origin. More recently, two pro-Palestinian organizations, the Collectif Palestine Vaincra and the Comite Action Palestine were banned by the interior ministry, on the grounds of inciting “hatred, discrimination and violence against people because of their Jewish origin,” an accusation strenuously denied by the organizations and their supporters, amongst whom are multiple trade unions and civil society organisations.
The Collectif Palestine Vaincra argued that “the vast majority of cited reasons [for the ban] indicate that we are being targeted for ‘thought-crimes’ on Palestinian rights.”
The interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, has also shown enthusiasm for the possibility of banning a popular left-wing media outlet and forum, Nantes Révoltée, after it publicised an anti-fascist protest that ended in some broken windows and clashes between protesters and police. It should be noted that the government has also sought to ban far-right groups, such as Generation Identitaire, which Darmanin has described as a “private militia” – although despite the move being authorized in May last year, the group’s website is still up and running. Read more - Lire plus
Growing solidarity in France and around the world confronts anti-Palestinian repression
| |
ACLU sues DHS, says Muslim Americans questioned about faith at border | |
|
The Hill 24/03/2022 - Three U.S. citizens filed a federal lawsuit on Thursday in the United States District Court for the Central District of California alleging they have been subjected to "unconstitutional questioning" from border officials about their religion. The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Minnesota and the ACLU Foundation of Southern California filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of three Muslim Americans who say they have been asked "inappropriate religious questions," including "whether they are Muslim, whether they attend a mosque, which mosque they attend, whether they are Sunni or Shi'a, and how often they pray." They say the questions have been asked on multiple occasions when the plaintiffs came home from traveling abroad. "By targeting plaintiffs for religious questioning merely because they are Muslim...border officers stigmatize them for adhering to a particular faith and condemn their religion as subject to suspicion and distrust," the lawsuit said.
The suit details the treatment of the plaintiffs Abdirahman Aden Kariye, Mohamad Mouslli and Hameem Shah at various ports of entry into the U.S. and details the questioning they faced from border officials. The ACLU said in a press release Thursday that the questioning by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) violates the plaintiff's First Amendment freedoms of religion and association, as well as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). It added that this questioning is "part of a broader 20-year practice of border officials targeting Muslim American travelers because of their religion." The plaintiffs are asking the court to declare that the CBP's religious questioning violates the Constitution and RFRA. The lawsuit also seeks an injunction that will stop the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and CBP from questioning the plaintiffs about their faith at ports of entry, and demands that recordings of the questioning be expunged. The Hill has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection for comment.
The ACLU has previously said that U.S. citizens and lawful residents who are Muslim have been targeted by CBP officers for questioning about "deeply personal beliefs, associations and religious practices protected by the First Amendment." Numerous Muslim travelers have complained of being questioned while traveling in the decades since September 11. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Department of Homeland Security's Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties opened an internal investigation in 2011 to look into several complaints it had received from U.S. citizens and permanent residents who said they had been questioned about their Muslim faith and practices. The report added that the investigation was later closed without a conclusion when the Council on American-Islamic Relations filed a related lawsuit. Read more - Lire plus
| |
Remembering the victims of the Islamophobic Christchurch massacre | |
|
Islamic Relief Canada 15/03/2022 - Three years have passed since the shooting at Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, where 51 of our Muslim brothers and sister were killed as they prayed to Allah SWT. Three years of grief, patience and perseverance. This anniversary reminds us that Islamophobia is present, and it kills. To the families who lost their loved ones, we feel the missing space that they have left behind. Their passing has unified us as an ummah, and their memory continues to strengthen us every day. May Allah SWT grant peace to those who have passed and ease the suffering of their families. Source
The Christchurch massacre may have had a Canadian connection – but there’s a reason you may not know about it
| |
Canada must protect encryption! | |
Canada’s extradition system is broken. One leading legal expert calls it “the least fair law in Canada.” It has led to grave harms and rights violations, as we’ve seen in the case of Canadian citizen Dr Hassan Diab. It needs to be reformed now.
Click below to send a message to urge Prime Minister Trudeau, the Minister of Justice and your Member of Parliament to reform the extradition system before it makes more victims. And share on Facebook + Twitter + Instagram. Thank you!
Regardez la vidéo avec les sous-titres en français + Agir
| |
PM Trudeau: Stop CBSA's Treatment of Egyptian Refugee Families | Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) officers officers, based in Vancouver, have targeted Egyptian refugee families and denied them an opportunity to seek refugee protection in Canada because of their affiliations with political organisations in Egypt. Egyptian asylum seekers are not only denied protections but also facing risk of deportation to torture and cruel and unusual punishments. We are writing to you as a group to demand that the Minister of Public Safety intervenes and directs CBSA to withdraw these unfounded accusations against these families. | |
Parliamentary petition against the purchase of fighter jets | |
We call upon the House of Commons to:
1. Cancel the competition to purchase new combat aircraft;
2. Include all of the emissions from the military vehicles and operations in the government’s emission reduction plan and net-zero plan; and
3. Invest in a conversion plan to create thousands of jobs in the green, care economy to transition Canada away from fossil fuel and armed forces.
Also sign: NDP must oppose F-35 purchase + Stop Killer Robots
+ Halt weapons sales to Saudi Arabia
| |
Tell President Biden: Close Guantanamo | |
Now, with growing support in Congress, President Biden has an opportunity to end these ongoing abuses by closing the detention center. Help us close Guantánamo and ensure the transfer of all cleared detainees to countries where their human rights will be respected.
Act Now to tell President Biden to shut down the Guantánamo Bay detention facility!
| |
Canada: Condemn Israeli Silencing of Palestinian Groups | |
Send an email urging Canada to:
1) Condemn Israel’s wrongful designation of these human rights groups, and
2) Demand Israel rescind such labels over the Palestinian organizations
Protect Human Rights Defenders in Palestine!
| |
Cihan Erdal is a Canadian permanent resident, queer youth activist, doctoral student, and coordinator of the Centre for Urban Youth Research at Carleton University in Ottawa. He was unjustly detained in Turkey on unfounded charges in September 2020, after being swept up in a mass arrest of politicians, activists, and academics in Istanbul. Send a message to Canadian officials now the Canadian government can take to help bring Cihan safely home. | |
How to Help Afghans in Afghanistan and Canada | |
Muslim Link - The people of Afghanistan are in dire need of humanitarian aid and Canada has committed to accepting 20,000 Afghan refugees.
How can you help? Click below for a list of ways you can support the people of Afghanistan at home and abroad.
Demand action from Canada in response to the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan
| |
Protect our rights from facial recognition! | |
ICLMG - Facial recognition surveillance is invasive and inaccurate. This unregulated tech poses a threat to the fundamental rights of people across Canada. Federal intelligence agencies refuse to disclose whether they use facial recognition technology. The RCMP has admitted (after lying about it) to using facial recognition for 18 years without regulation, let alone a public debate regarding whether it should have been allowed in the first place.
Send a message to Prime Minister Trudeau and Public Safety Minister Bill Blair calling for a ban now.
+ Take action to ban biometric recognition technologies
| |
Trudeau: Ensure justice for Abousfian Abdelrazik | |
In September 2003, Canadian citizen Abousfian Abdelrazik was arrested in Sudan, while he was back in the country visiting his ailing mother. Over the next three years he was imprisoned for nearly 20 months and was held under house arrest for 12 months.
He was denied a lawyer, and was never charged or brought before a judge. During that time he was badly tortured in three different prisons. Not only did Canada fail to take steps to protect him, CSIS officials frequently obstructed efforts to secure his release.
| |
Stop Mohamed Harkat's Deportation to Torture | |
No one should be deported to torture. Ever. For nearly 19 years, Mohamed Harkat has faced the ordeal of being place under a kafkaesque security certificate based on secret evidence and accusations he cannot challenge, and facing deportation to torture in Algeria.
Please join us and send the letter below to Prime Minister Trudeau and Minister of Public Safety Marco Mendicino, urging them to stop the deportation to torture of Mr. Harkat.
- Your letter will also go to your Member of Parliament, along with the ministers of Justice & of Immigration.
-
And don't hesitate to also sign and share this petition!
| |
China: Free Canadian Huseyin Celil | |
The Chinese authorities accused Huseyin of offences related to his activities in support of Uighur rights. They held Huseyin in a secret place. They gave him no access to a lawyer, to his family, or to Canadian officials. They threatened him and forced him to sign a confession. They refused to recognize Huseyin’s status as a Canadian citizen, and they did not allow Canadian officials to attend his trial. It was not conducted fairly, and resulted in a sentence of life in prison in China. His life sentence was reduced to 20 years in February 2016. Huseyin has spent much of his time in solitary confinement. He lacks healthy food and is in poor health. Kamila needs her husband, and the boys need their father back
+ Urge China to stop targeting Uyghurs in China and abroad
| |
OTHER NEWS - AUTRES NOUVELLES | |
From July to Dec - De juillet à décembre 2021 | |
|
Check out our biannual summary of activities: What We've Been Up To from July to December 2021.
In 2022, we plan to continue our work on the following issues:
- The Canadian government's concerning "online harms" legislative proposal, including its approach on "terrorist content," mandatory reporting to law enforcement and new powers for CSIS;
- Protecting our privacy from government surveillance, including facial recognition, and from attempts to weaken encryption, along with advocating for privacy law reform;
- Justice for Mohamed Harkat, an end to security certificates, addressing problems in security inadmissibility and establishing a long overdue independent review and complaint body for the CBSA;
- Justice for Hassan Diab and launching a video on extradition law reform;
- Greater transparency and accountability for CSIS;
- The return of the 40+ Canadian citizens indefinitely detained in Syrian camps, including 26 children;
- The end to the CRA's prejudiced audits of Muslim-led charities, revealed in our June 2021 report;
- Greater accountability and transparency for the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), including the establishment of a strong, effective and independent review mechanism;
- Monitoring the implementation of the National Security Act, 2017 (Bill C-59);
- Advocating for the repeal of the Canadian No Fly List, and for putting a stop to the use of the US No Fly List by air carriers in Canada for flights that do not land in or fly over the US;
- Pressuring lawmakers to protect our civil liberties from the negative impact of national security and the "war on terror", as well as keeping you and our member organizations informed via the News Digest;
- And much more!
Read more - Lire plus and share on Facebook + Twitter + Instagram
| |
Les opinions exprimées ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de la CSILC - The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the positions of ICLMG. | |
|
THANK YOU
to our amazing supporters!
We would like to thank all our member organizations, and the hundreds of people who have supported us over the years, including on Patreon! As a reward, we are listing below our patrons who give $10 or more per month (and wanted to be listed) directly in the News Digest. Without all of you, our work wouldn't be possible!
Bill Ewanick
Mary Ann Higgs
Kevin Malseed
Brian Murphy
Colin Stuart
Bob Thomson
James Turk
John & Rosemary Williams
Jo Wood
The late Bob Stevenson
Nous tenons à remercier nos organisations membres ainsi que les centaines de personnes qui ont soutenu notre travail à travers les années, y compris sur Patreon! En récompense, nous nommons ci-dessus nos mécènes qui donnent 10$ ou plus par mois et voulaient être mentionné.es directement dans la Revue de l'actualité. Sans vous tous et toutes, notre travail ne serait pas possible!
Merci!
| | | | |
